(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates a method and apparatus for allocating a multicast resource, and a method and apparatus for receiving allocation information of multicast resource.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A multicast communication is used to a group communication where users join in a conversation. In the group communication, the same downlink traffic is simultaneously transmitted to all the users in a group performing the group communication. Therefore, the users joining the group communication can use a multicast connection to transmit data of the group communication.
Users joining in the multicast communication persistently use the same resource in a multicast-based group communication. Therefore, if a conventional resource allocation method for allocating a resource to each user is applied to the multicast communication, frequent resource allocations are inefficiently performed. Further, since a mobile station should receive and decode a message including resource allocation information frequently, unnecessary power loss occurs.